Starting from the second semester of the academic year 2024-2025, the "Riccardo Massa" Department of Human Sciences for Education offers, in collaboration with Bbetween, 3 courses of 8 ECTS, specifically dedicated to incoming students of the master's degree programs in Human Resource Development, Educational Sciences, and Artistic Languages for Education, but open to all University students.
Each course consists of 4 modules of 2 ECTS each. Each module lasts 14 hours, is taught exclusively in English, and can be attended upon registration in the dedicated section on the e-learning platform. For the methods and times of conducting teaching activities, and for the methodologies of taking exams, it is necessary to refer to the information in the respective sections of the e-learning platform. The completion of each module will be certified with an open badge as a micro-credential.
For students enrolled in the study programs offered by the "Riccardo Massa" Department of Human Sciences for Education, it is possible to include the course in their study plan, obtaining 8 ECTS. In this case, it will be necessary to pass all the modules that make up the course to have the activity recognized in their transcript. Each module is graded out of thirty, which will be averaged to determine the final course grade.
The proposed courses are as follows:
The course is included among the elective activities of the Master's Degree in Educational Sciences.
The course consists of the following 4 modules:
- Approaching an Ecological Research Paradigm in Social Sciences The module aims to propose some reflections on the possibility of adopting an ecological paradigm within research practices in the field of social sciences. The module also intends to highlight the necessity of individual positioning regarding the multiple decisions that an "ecological" vision prompts, particularly in an ethical sense.
- On public philosophy: ideas and practices for interdisciplinary inquiry and societal change How can great philosophical ideas impact societies, and conversely, how do social phenomena and transformations influence philosophical research? The module aims to explore this and other questions by introducing participants to the perspective of “public philosophy,” an emerging trend in the humanities that blends the interdisciplinary analysis of the social sciences with the reflective and critical tools of moral and political philosophy.
- From Gutenberg to Google: archiving and editing in a digital ecosystemThe module aims to discuss case studies that highlight the methodological constants inherent in the archiving and critical curation of (hyper)textual data, viewed in a diachronic perspective from antiquity to the contemporary age. The sessions will be aimed at encouraging reflection around two substantial points: how to archive data from the dual analogue and digital perspective. How to create an information hierarchy within (hyper)texts stratified on a diachronic and synchronic level.
- Towards a philological perspective to a digital environment The module aims to propose reflections and case studies that allow focus on the methods and tools of a philological approach to digital contemporaneity. In particular, the philological paradigm can serve as a salvific antidote to deconstruct fake news, informational distortion, and argumentative fallacies, revealing its heuristic and democratic function well beyond its seemingly circumscribed field of interest.
The course is included among the elective activities of the Master's Degree in Artistic Languages for Education.
The course is composed of the following 4 modules:
- Youth participation and artistic languages: theoretical and methodological perspectives in the educational field The module emphasizes the importance of involving minors in decisions that affect them, within the broader context of children's and adolescents' rights, analyzed from a pedagogical perspective. The focus is on how to create favourable conditions for minors to actively participate in their life contexts, with an emphasis on the use of artistic language as a means of expression.
- Psychology of Digital Communication: Interactive and Immersive Media The module aims to prepare students on theoretical models of communication, as well as to develop practical skills in the critical evaluation of media messages and the analysis of digital communication strategies. It includes lessons and activities concerning the main theoretical models, concepts, and applications of human communication, with particular attention to their application in contemporary media contexts, including video games and virtual reality.
- Media ecologies and digital (counter-)cultures The module proposes the study and analysis of digital media as pedagogical devices that take part in the construction, ratification, and/or deconstruction of cultural models. Digital media, in fact, can contribute both to reinforcing common sense discourses on a plethora of social and educational phenomena and to their deconstruction, expanding the learning opportunities with which individuals engage and of which they can be promoters, towards the shared co-construction of digital (counter-)cultures.
- Diverging and Converging: Understanding, Practicing, and Promoting Creative Thinking in Education The module aims to provide knowledge about theories of creativity, stimulating reflection on the meanings and spaces of creative thinking in educational contexts. In particular, it aims to foster an understanding of the facets of the concept of creativity as theorized and operationalized in various theoretical approaches. Furthermore, it seeks to support the reflection and practical application of the meanings of creativity in educational spaces and times, in order to conceive and implement interventions that respect the diversity of thought and openness to different possibilities and solutions to social situations and educational needs.
The course is included among the elective activities of the Master's Degree in Training and Development of Human Resources.
The course is composed of the following 4 modules:
- Thinking through democracy The module aims to provide an introduction to the main philosophical models of democracy present in contemporary debate, stimulating critical reflection on the concepts and practices of current democracies. Through the study of some of the main theories proposed in recent decades (deliberative democracy, agonistic democracy, lottery democracy, populism, disagreement, post-democracy), this module will lay the foundations for problematizing the current theories and practices of representative democracy, exploring the strengths and weaknesses of alternative proposals.
- Global mental health and human rights The module aims to critically discuss the current individual, social, and cultural factors influencing public mental health in the Global South. Issues of gender, race, and class will be examined in light of postcolonial, feminist, and critical studies. The consequences of the colonial legacy of the Global North against the oppressed of the Global South are severe and continue to promote gaps and inequalities worldwide. The general objective of the module is to explore participatory theories of liberation in mental health and examine indigenous knowledge and collective healing as alternatives to individualistic pathology frameworks.
- Migrations from/to the Global South The module aims to provide an introduction, both critical and non-specialist, to the study of migration from the perspective of the Global South. Through an anthropological perspective and the study of some concrete cases, contemporary mobility dynamics will be understood in their complexity. The objective is to foster an understanding of migration as a historical and socio-political phenomenon, encouraging critical reflection on the importance of migration as a factor of socio-cultural, economic, and political change.
- New forms of inclusion in the information society The module includes lessons on the models of inclusion and participation that have developed through the spread of digital communication. The debate on direct democracy, e-democracy experiences, or participatory practices at the local level will be discussed within the broader dimension of contemporary reflection on the information society and the tools of inclusion and participation that are made available.